The “Controversy” Behind Bernie Sanders’ Speech At The Women’s Convention

The thing is, there is none.

First, let’s take a look at everything Bernie Sanders has done throughout his career looking out for and advocating for women’s rights.

He has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood for being pro-choice in Congress, was a cosponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act of 1993, and supports policies that would decrease poverty (and therefore decrease the number of abortions women would need), like a $15 minimum wage, a Medicare-for-all system, and paid maternity and paternity leave.

He is a supporter of pay equity, cosponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act, and voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

He voted for the Violence Against Women Act (which decreased domestic violence against women by more than 50%, and created the Office on Violence Against Women), and cosponsored the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (which included provisions to extend the act to the LGBTQ+ community, people in Native American reservations, and immigrants). Even though these acts state in the title that they are for women, the acts more broadly apply to women, men, transgender people, etc…

Considering all of this, it is natural to think that he would be a perfect candidate to give the opening speech at the Women’s Convention, since he has fought for women’s rights his entire career.

However, even though Bernie Sanders is a completely reasonable candidate for this position, still some corporate Democrats somehow have a problem with this decision.

Even the Women’s Convention organizers had to clear this one up for them, pointing out how a vast majority of the speakers are women, and how Sanders has the opening speech, but not the headlining speech.

Mallroy makes a great point in this last tweet. Why didn’t the media pay attention to the fact that specifically a woman of color was headlining the Women’s Convention, but paid attention to a white man (who has a fantastic record on women’s rights) who was opening the Women’s Convention?

Also, this is an incredible amount of outrage for something so small in the grand US political scheme right now. What if all this outrage was directed at, I don’t know, a living wage, or Medicare-for-all, or any other policy that actually helps women with their real world problems?

However, the outrage still continues, even from people like the president of EMILY’s List:

Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. Wasn’t your gala headlined by a man?

Oh yeah, now we get to see what this outrage is really about. It’s not about women’s rights, it’s not about sexism or misogyny, and it’s definitely not about a man opening the Women’s Convention. It doesn’t really matter if a man headlines an event important to women. What really matters to EMILY’s List, Neera Tanden, Joy Reid, and the rest of the corporatists in Democratic Party circles is that no real progressive headline or open any of their events. That’s what the controversy is about; not a man opening the Women’s Convention, but a progressive opening the Women’s Convention.

And to be completely honest, it’s a very pleasant surprise that the Woman’s March and Women’s Convention not only made the decision to put Bernie Sanders as the opening speaker, but also that they are still standing by their decision to put Bernie Sanders as the opening speaker.

The Woman’s March is unfortunately generally tilted towards the establishment. In a statement to Vox, they say that they invited several other not-so-great candidates for the slot:

In a statement to Vox, organizers with the Women’s March defended the decision to give Sanders the opening-night slot. They said that several prominent female Democrats — including Clinton, as well as Sens. Kamala Harris (CA), Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) — had been unable to attend. (Staffers for Harris and Warren confirmed they were invited to participate at the event.)

The fact that they considered Hillary Clinton, the person that lost the Presidency to the most unpopular Presidential candidate in modern US history, and that currently has a higher unfavorable rating than the current US President is very unsettling (She has 55% unfavorable, he has 53%).

However, with their recent moves of joining with Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, and Brand New Congress for the People’s Platform, and sticking by their decision to put Bernie Sanders in the opening night slot majorly improves their standings of being on the right side of the issues. Progressives should be thankful that the Women’s Convention realizes that there’s no problem with their decision.

There’s no controversy here. If someone has a problem with Bernie Sanders opening the Women’s Convention, they’d better take a much closer look at their outrage priorities.